God without the Idea of Evil

With rich theological language that will appeal to a broad audience, this beautifully written book offers a hopeful interpretation of the problem of evil that plagues our time.

In God without the Idea of Evil, well-known French Catholic theologian Jean-Miguel Garrigues, O.P., seeks to rise above the apparent contradiction of faith and the existence of evil, suffering, and death. Originally published in France as Dieu sans idée du mal in 1982, a revised second edition came out in 1990, and in 2016 the book was released again with a foreword by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, which serves as the basis for the present translation. At its heart, this book contemplates the mystery of our election by God, which is expressed in the very fact of our existence. Garrigues addresses compelling theological topics—the concept of moral evil, the “redemptive charity” of Christ, the “journey” of human liberty, and the process of “nature becoming history”—with precise, poetically charged language that remains accessible.

Garrigues makes a passionate defense of the innocence of God in the face of moral evil. By enveloping us in his look, as Cardinal Schönborn writes in the foreword, “God encounters us in the very gift of being that he bestows upon us, and his eyes do not see our sin.” The book invites us to rediscover in the eyes of Jesus the eternal, continually renewed charm of the divine gaze. We are illumined and inspired by a vision of God who “does not see us through the evil in us,” but rather loves us from the infinite depths of his creative charity.

Foreword by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn

Translator’s Preface

Introduction

Part 1. The Mystery

1. The Omnipotence of the Father

2. The Humanity of God

3. The Innocence of the Father in Our Adoption

4. The Glorious Growth of the Liberty of the Sons of God

5. The Good Will “Even unto Madness” of the Lamb of God

6. The Vulnerability of God as the Lamb

Part 2. The Economy of the Mystery

7. The Son as the Lamb Who Was Slain from the Beginning of the World

8. Gethsemane: The Supreme Contradiction of Evil

9. The Mysterious Ambivalence of the Cup

10. In the Cell of Mercy

Part 3. An Understanding of the Mystery

11. God without the Idea of Evil

12. How Does God Know the Evil of Which He Has No Idea?